Download or read book Special Topics in Calamity Physics written by Marisha Pessl and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-08-03 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mesmerizing New York Times bestseller by the author of Night Film Marisha Pessl’s dazzling debut sparked raves from critics and heralded the arrival of a vibrant new voice in American fiction. At the center of Special Topics in Calamity Physics is clever, deadpan Blue van Meer, who has a head full of literary, philosophical, scientific, and cinematic knowledge. But she could use some friends. Upon entering the elite St. Gallway School, she finds some—a clique of eccentrics known as the Bluebloods. One drowning and one hanging later, Blue finds herself puzzling out a byzantine murder mystery. Nabokov meets Donna Tartt (then invites the rest of the Western Canon to the party) in this novel—with visual aids drawn by the author—that has won over readers of all ages.

Download or read book Special Topics in Calamity Physics written by Marisha Pessl and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having moved from one academic outpost to another throughout her childhood at the side of her aphorism-prone father, Blue van Meer attends the elite St. Gallway School in her senior year, where she falls in with a charismatic group of friends before the deaths of a teacher and student awaken her analytical instincts. A first novel. 50,000 first printing.

Download or read book Special Topics in Calamity Physics written by Marisha Pessl and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-09-12 with total page 639 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics is an unforgettable debut novel that combines the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt and the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock: a darkly hilarious coming-of-age tale and a richly plotted suspense story, told with dazzling intelligence and wit. 'I wrote this account one year after I'd found Hannah Dead. I thought I'd managed to erase all traces of that night within myself. But I was wrong. Every night when I tried to sleep, I'd close my eyes and see her again, exactly as I found her, hanging from a pine tree by an orange electrical cord, her neck twisted like a tulip stem, her eyes seeing nothing. Or else that was the problem. They'd seen everything.' Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a mesmerizing debut. As teenager Blue van Meer tells her story we are hurled into a dizzying world of murder and butterflies, womanizing and wandering, American McCulture, The Western Canon, political radicalism and juvenile crushisms. Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class (with hand-drawn Visual Aids), Blue's wickedly funny yet poignant tale reveals how the imagination finds meaning in the most bewildering times, the ways people of all ages strive for connection, and how the darkest of secrets can set us free. 'Beneath the foam of this exuberant debut is a dark, strong drink' Jonathan Franzen, author of, The Corrections 'Any [Donna] Tartt fan disappointed that her second novel had little in common with her debut should rush out and buy this book immediately... It's a brilliant debut, guaranteed to join the ranks of The Secret History and The Virgin Suicides as one of those rare books to become a cult hit and instant classic' Sunday Telegraph 'One of the most impressive debut novels I have ever read ... It stops you doing anything apart from reading it ' Independent on Sunday 'Special Topics in Calamity Physics made me stay up all night reading; in the morning it seemed like one of those parties where everyone is too cool for you but you desperately want to know them anyway . . . I loved this book' Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife Marisha Pessl was born in 1977 and lives in New York. This is her first novel.

Download or read book Neverworld Wake written by Marisha Pessl and published by Scholastic UK. This book was released on 2018-06-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compulsive, read-in-one-sitting suspense novel: page-turning, perfectly paced with a trust-no-one cast of characters and a high stakes death-cheating dilemma. Five friends. Only one can survive the Neverworld Wake. Who would you choose?

Download or read book Night Film written by Marisha Pessl and published by Bond Street Books. This book was released on 2013-08-20 with total page 782 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a damp October night, the body of young, beautiful Ashley Cordova is found in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. By all appearances her death is a suicide--but investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. Though much has been written about the dark and unsettling films of Ashley's father, Stanislas Cordova, very little is known about the man himself. As McGrath pieces together the mystery of Ashley's death, he is drawn deeper and deeper into the dark underbelly of New York City and the twisted world of Stanislas Cordova, and he begins to wonder--is he the next victim? In this novel, the dazzlingly inventive writer Marisha Pessl offers a breathtaking mystery that will hold you in suspense until the last page is turned.

Download or read book The One Only written by Emily Giffin and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The beloved author of Something Borrowed and Where We Belong returns with an extraordinary story of love and loyalty—and an unconventional heroine struggling to reconcile both. This ebook edition contains an excerpt from Emily Giffin’s First Comes Love. Emily Giffin, the beloved author of such novels as Something Borrowed and Where We Belong, returns with an extraordinary story of love and loyalty—and an unconventional heroine struggling to reconcile both. Thirty-three-year-old Shea Rigsby has spent her entire life in Walker, Texas—a small college town that lives and dies by football, a passion she unabashedly shares. Raised alongside her best friend, Lucy, the daughter of Walker’s legendary head coach, Clive Carr, Shea was too devoted to her hometown team to leave. Instead she stayed in Walker for college, even taking a job in the university athletic department after graduation, where she has remained for more than a decade. But when an unexpected tragedy strikes the tight-knit Walker community, Shea’s comfortable world is upended, and she begins to wonder if the life she’s chosen is really enough for her. As she finally gives up her safety net to set out on an unexpected path, Shea discovers unsettling truths about the people and things she has always trusted most—and is forced to confront her deepest desires, fears, and secrets. Thoughtful, funny, and brilliantly observed, The One & Only is a luminous novel about finding your passion, following your heart, and, most of all, believing in something bigger than yourself . . . the one and only thing that truly makes life worth living. Praise for The One & Only • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY POPSUGAR “A page turner.”—Southern Living “The One & Only is one to read.”—Associated Press “Giffin scores again by bringing her discerning understanding of matters of the heart.”—Family Circle “A poignant story about growing up and growing into your own skin.”—BookPage “Touching.”—New York Daily News “Deep, beautifully written . . . [Emily Giffin’s] latest focuses on a forbidden love of sorts, but in a new setting: a fictional small college town in Texas.”—Marie Claire “Each and every page of this story is entertaining. . . . Find a shady spot; get a cool drink, and just luxuriate in the joy of a book well written.”—The Huffington Post “Brace yourself for a tearjerker: A tale of friendship and loyalty in a small, football-crazed Texas town shows how quickly things can change when tragedy challenges all that the characters hold dear . . . [A] page-turner.”—InStyle “[Giffin’s] protagonists . . . live full, interesting lives outside the purely personal realm—no more so than Shea Rigsby, the funny, flawed, but sympathetic central character in the The One & Only.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “In bestseller Giffin’s much-anticipated latest, a young woman’s life is upended when tragedy strikes the football-obsessed Texas town she’s always called home.”—People “To fill your Friday Night Lights void: A tale of die-hard love in a diehard Texas football town from the bestselling author of Something Borrowed.”—Cosmopolitan

Download or read book The Truants written by Kate Weinberg and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the New York Times Book Review's Top Ten Best Crime Novels of 2020 One of USA Today's Best Books 2020 "[A] hypnotic debut. . . .[An] uncommonly clever whodunit."--New York Times Book Review Perfect for lovers of Agatha Christie and The Secret History, The Truants is a seductive, unsettling, and beautifully written debut novel of literary suspense--a thrilling exploration of deceit, first love, and the depths to which obsession can drive us. People disappear when they most want to be seen. Jess Walker has come to a concrete campus under the flat gray skies of East Anglia for one reason: to be taught by the mesmerizing and rebellious Dr. Lorna Clay, whose seminars soon transform Jess's thinking on life, love, and Agatha Christie. Swept up in Lorna's thrall, Jess falls in with a tightly knit group of rule-breakers--Alec, a courageous South African journalist with a nihilistic streak; Georgie, a seductive, pill-popping aristocrat; and Nick, a handsome geologist with layers of his own. But the dynamic between the friends begins to darken, until a tragedy shatters their friendships and love affairs, and reveals a terrible secret. Soon Jess must face the question she fears most: what is the true cost of an extraordinary life? An Entertainment Weekly Best Book of January A USA Today Must-Read Book of Winter An Observer Book of the Year (UK) A Marie Claire Top 5 Christmas Read (UK) A Times Best New Crime Novel (UK) A Guardian Top 10 Golden Age Detective Novel An Irish Times Best Debut of 2019 An Apple Books Pick for January

Download or read book A Perfect Crime written by A Yi and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-05-07 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a normal day in provincial China, a teenager goes about his regular business, but he’s also planning the brutal murder of his only friend. He lures her over, strangles her, stuffs her body into the washing machine and flees town, whereupon a perilous game of cat-and-mouse begins. A shocking investigation into the despair that traps the rural poor as well as a technically brilliant excursion into the claustrophobic realm of classic horror and suspense, A Perfect Crime is a thrilling and stylish novel about a motiveless murder that echoes Kafka’s absurdism, Camus’ nihilism and Dostoyevsky’s depravity. With exceptional tonal control, A Yi steadily reveals the psychological backstory that enables us to make sense of the story’s dramatic violence and provides chillingly apt insights into a country on the cusp of enormous social, political and economic change.

Download or read book My Last Supper written by Melanie Dunea and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Aristocrats meets Vanity Fair in this stunning celebration of the world's most famous chefs.

Download or read book Black Chalk written by Christopher J. Yates and published by Picador. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compulsively readable psychological thriller set in New York and at Oxford University in which a group of six students play an elaborate game of dares and consequences with tragic result It was only ever meant to be a game played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University; a game of consequences, silly forfeits, and childish dares. But then the game changed: The stakes grew higher and the dares more personal and more humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results. Now, fourteen years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round. Who knows better than your best friends what would break you? A gripping psychological thriller partly inspired by the author's own time at Oxford University, Black Chalk is perfect for fans of the high tension and expert pacing of The Secret History and The Bellwether Revivals. Christopher J. Yates' background in puzzle writing and setting can clearly be seen in the plotting of this clever, tricky book that will keep you guessing to the very end.

Download or read book The Eight written by Katherine Neville and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-07-21 with total page 523 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “fascinating” #1 international bestseller of a quest across centuries by two intrepid women to reunite the pieces of a powerful, ancient chess set (Los Angeles Times Book Review). A fabulous, bejeweled chess set that belonged to Charlemagne has been buried in a Pyrenees abbey for a thousand years. As the bloody French Revolution rages in Paris, the nuns dig it up and scatter its pieces across the globe because, when united, the set contains a secret power that could topple civilizations. To keep the set from falling into the wrong hands, two novices, Valentine and Mireille, embark on an adventure that begins in the streets of Paris and leads to Russia, Egypt, Corsica, and into the heart of the Algerian Sahara. Two hundred years later, while on assignment in Algeria, computer expert Catherine Velis finds herself drawn unwillingly into the deadly “Game” still swirling around the legendary chess set—a game that will require her to risk her life and match wits with diabolical forces. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Katherine Neville including rare images from her life and travels.

Download or read book And Only to Deceive written by Tasha Alexander and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From gifted new writer Tasha Alexander comes a stunning novel of historical suspense set in Victorian England, meticulously researched and with a twisty plot that involves stolen antiquities, betrayal, and murder And Only to Deceive For Emily, accepting the proposal of Philip, the Viscount Ashton, was an easy way to escape her overbearing mother, who was set on a grand society match. So when Emily's dashing husband died on safari soon after their wedding, she felt little grief. After all, she barely knew him. Now, nearly two years later, she discovers that Philip was a far different man from the one she had married so cavalierly. His journals reveal him to have been a gentleman scholar and antiquities collector who, to her surprise, was deeply in love with his wife. Emily becomes fascinated with this new image of her dead husband and she immerses herself in all things ancient and begins to study Greek. Emily's intellectual pursuits and her desire to learn more about Philip take her to the quiet corridors of the British Museum, one of her husband's favorite places. There, amid priceless ancient statues, she uncovers a dark, dangerous secret involving stolen artifacts from the Greco-Roman galleries. And to complicate matters, she's juggling two very prominent and wealthy suitors, one of whose intentions may go beyond the marrying kind. As she sets out to solve the crime, her search leads to more surprises about Philip and causes her to question the role in Victorian society to which she, as a woman, is relegated.

Download or read book Sea Monsters written by Chloe Aridjis and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2020 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, this intoxicating story of a teenage girl who trades her a middle–class upbringing for a quest for meaning in 1980s Mexico is “a surreal, captivating tale about the power of a youthful imagination, the lure of teenage transgression, and its inevitable disappointments” (Los Angeles Review of Books). One autumn afternoon in Mexico City, seventeen–year–old Luisa does not return home from school. Instead, she boards a bus to the Pacific coast with Tomás, a boy she barely knows. He seems to represent everything her life is lacking―recklessness, impulse, independence. Tomás may also help Luisa fulfill an unusual obsession: she wants to track down a traveling troupe of Ukrainian dwarfs. According to newspaper reports, the dwarfs recently escaped a Soviet circus touring Mexico. The imagined fates of these performers fill Luisa’s surreal dreams as she settles in a beach community in Oaxaca. Surrounded by hippies, nudists, beachcombers, and eccentric storytellers, Luisa searches for someone, anyone, who will “promise, no matter what, to remain a mystery.” It is a quest more easily envisioned than accomplished. As she wanders the shoreline and visits the local bar, Luisa begins to disappear dangerously into the lives of strangers on Zipolite, the “Beach of the Dead.” Meanwhile, her father has set out to find his missing daughter. A mesmeric portrait of transgression and disenchantment unfolds. Set to a pulsing soundtrack of Joy Division, Nick Cave, and Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sea Monsters is a brilliantly playful and supple novel about the moments and mysteries that shape us. "Aridjis is deft at conjuring the teenage swooniness that apprehends meaning below every surface. Like Sebald’s or Cusk’s, her haunted writing patrols its own omissions . . . The figure of the shipwreck looms large for Aridjis. It becomes a useful lens through which to see this book, which is self–contained, inscrutable, and weirdly captivating, like a salvaged object that wants to return to the sea." ―Katy Waldman, The New Yorker

Download or read book Windhall written by Ava Barry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning literary thriller in which an investigative journalist in modern Los Angeles attempts to solve the Golden Age murder of a Hollywood starlet. 1940s Hollywood was an era of decadence and director Theodore Langley was its king. Paired with Eleanor Hayes as his lead actress, Theo ruled the Golden Age of Hollywood. That ended when Eleanor’s mangled body was discovered in Theo’s rose garden and he was charged with her murder. The case was thrown out before it went to trial and Theo fled L.A., leaving his crawling estate, Windhall, to fall into ruin. He hasn’t been seen since. Decades later, investigative journalist Max Hailey, raised by his gran on stories of old Hollywood, is sure that if he could meet Theo, he could prove once and for all that the famed director killed his leading lady. When a copycat murder takes place near Windhall, the long reclusive Theo returns to L.A., and it seems Hailey finally has his chance. When Hailey gets his hands on Theo’s long-missing journals, he reads about Eleanor’s stalkers and her role in Theo’s final film, The Last Train to Avalon, a film so controversial it was never released to the public. In the months leading up to her death, something had left her so terrified she stopped coming to work. The more Hailey learns about Avalon, the more convinced he becomes that the film could tell him who killed Eleanor and why she had to die. But the implications of Avalon reach far beyond Eleanor’s murder, and Hailey must race to piece together the murders of the past and present before it’s too late.

Download or read book Dark Rooms written by Lili Anolik and published by Siddharth Katragadda. This book was released on 2015-06-04 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Murder and glamour set in the ambiguous and claustrophobic world of an exclusive New England prep school"--

Download or read book Tell Me Everything written by Cambria Brockman and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A compulsive page-turner with shades of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History peopled by a new generation.”—Catherine Steadman, New York Times bestselling author of Something in the Water NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY GOOD HOUSEKEEPING In her first weeks at Hawthorne College, Malin is swept up into a tight-knit circle that will stick together through all four years. There’s Gemma, an insecure theater major from London; John, a tall, handsome, wealthy New Englander; Max, John’s cousin, a shy pre-med major; Khaled, a wisecracking prince from Abu Dhabi; and Ruby, a beautiful art history major. But Malin isn’t like the rest of her friends. She’s an expert at hiding her troubled past. She acts as if she shares the preoccupations of those around her—dating, partying—all while using her extraordinary insight to detect their deepest vulnerabilities and weaknesses. By Senior Day, on the cusp of graduation, Malin’s secrets—and those of her friends—are revealed. While she scrambles to maintain her artfully curated image, her missteps set in motion a devastating chain of events that ends in a murder. And as fragile relationships hang in the balance and close alliances shift, Malin must test the limits of what she’s capable of to stop the truth from coming out. In a mesmerizing novel that peels back the innumerable layers of a seductive protagonist, debut author Cambria Brockman brings to life an entrancing story of friendship, heartbreak, and betrayal. Praise for Tell Me Everything “Gripping . . . Brockman paints an unnerving portrait of the power people hold over one another—especially as they blur the line between protective and obsessive.”—Time “At once a complex thriller and antihero origin story, Cambria Brockman’s riveting debut is a true page-turner.”—Lisa Lutz, New York Times bestselling author of the Spellman series and The Passenger “Cambria Brockman’s dark and twisty Tell Me Everything is an impressive debut, a complicated and compelling novel of psychological suspense that deftly explores the questions of how well we know our friends and of whom we can trust.”—Karen Dionne, author of the international bestseller The Marsh King’s Daughter

Download or read book Down a Dark Hall written by Lois Duncan and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2011-04-19 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A paranormal rollercoaster ride with goosebumps at every turn--now a motion picture starring Uma Thurman and Anna Sophia Robb! Kit Gordy sees Blackwood Hall towering over black iron gates, and she can't help thinking, This place is evil. The imposing mansion sends a shiver of fear through her. But Kit settles into a routine, trying to ignore the rumors that the highly exclusive boarding school is haunted. Then her classmates begin to show extraordinary and unknown talents. The strange dreams, the voices, the lost letters to family and friends, all become overshadowed by the magic around them. When Kit and her friends realize that Blackwood isn't what it claims to be, it might be too late.